


How Fragile Are the Very Strong

by kairis



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: #karladeservedbetter2k17, ....of some sort, Canon Universe, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 01:23:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9796160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kairis/pseuds/kairis
Summary: Karla's husband comes home grim faced, her son is covered with dried blood, and a small girl is clinging to him, his scarf snugly wrapped around her neck.





	

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from an Ingrid Michaelson song, "A Bird's Song".

The first time he came home with dried blood cracked and peeling on his face and the purplish tints of bruises smudged on his skin, she nearly cried. The very idea that anyone in the entire world would even dream of harming her son was upsetting to Karla, especially when she watched as he dragged his sprained ankle along the floor and winced when he set too much weight on it. He was only eight years old, and he was in complete euphoria. She hurriedly took to Eren’s forehead with a damp rag to wipe away the blood. The watering of her eyes seceded away while she listened to Eren’s recounting of how he’d bravely squared off against three older boys. He had vividly described how he’d dodged kicks and punches, but had ended up getting caught and pinned against an alley wall. The boys had whaled their fists against his cheeks and stomach and scraped his face against the worn stone wall, but Eren had not even (supposedly) considered giving up. It wasn’t until a burly man, probably the owner of the home Eren’s face was being grinded against, had threatened the boys with an imminent beating that Eren had slipped out of their grip and rejoined his friend to continue playing on the street.

By the time his face was no more than patches of reddened skin and a few bruises, Eren had finished his tall tale. Karla swept away his bangs with her fingertips and gently cupped his face in her hands.

“Sweetheart, why’d you do this?” she whispered.

“They were making fun of Armin. I had to do something,” Eren grumbled, shifting his eyes away from his mother’s.

“You could have been hurt really badly.”

“If I didn’t do anything, then Armin’s feelings would be hurt even more,” Eren protested. He pulled himself away from Karla’s grasp, still avoiding her eyes.

“There’s a way to protect others without just picking fights, Eren.”

He’d crossed his arms defiantly at that. Though he dared not say so, Karla could tell he was thinking right along the lines of “No, there isn’t.”

The shock of finding her son covered head to toe in minor injuries at the end of the day became less and less until it was a part of an almost daily routine. Eren would drudge in through the front door, plop himself on the bench beneath the windowsill, and Karla would be at his side with a dampened rag. Sometimes, Grisha’s medical knowledge was needed, like the time when Eren’s nose had been broken crookedly and wouldn’t stop bleeding, but it was almost always just Eren and Karla sitting in silence together. She’d wipe away the blood on Eren’s face, inspect the bruises and scrapes, and once or twice she’d stitched up a stubborn split lip. Karla made the point to always send Eren a disapproving look when she’d finished patching him up, but she never made the effort to address the issue directly. She was sure that eventually Eren would grow tired of being hurt and learn the lesson.

He was nine when she finally did cry when he returned home covered in blood.

It was late in evening, at least a couple hours after the meat for dinner had finished stewing. Karla had spent the past few hours pacing and contemplating all the reasons as to why Grisha and Eren would be so late in returning home. When her fears over her husband and son’s unfortunate demise at the expense of a sudden rainstorm had been proven wrong at the opening of the front door, she wanted to be happy. She came rushing to the doorway, anxious to make sure they were in good condition. The momentary happiness and relief was replaced with concern as she caught sight of Grisha’s grim expression, and of the deep purple bruises striped across her son’s neck and the dark splotches of what could only be blood splattered on the front of Eren’s shirt. Eren’s coat sleeve was being gripped tightly by the hand of a small girl, her skin pale and hair dark.

Her face was half obscured by the soft knit of Eren’s scarf wrapped snugly around her neck. The white nightgown she wore was stained with mud and small splatters of coppery dried blood. Grisha’s overcoat was draped over her shoulders, like an oversized woolen blanket. Her eyes were red and puffy, one of them rimmed with a purplish bruise. Parts of her cheeks were grazed with dark red scratches. Her ivory hair was tangled in knots and slightly damp. For a moment, her gray eyes met Karla’s, before she quickly averted them by ducking her head behind Eren’s shoulder.

“Grisha, what…?” Karla began, her heart pounding.

Eren was clenching and unclenching his fists uneasily, completely avoiding the looks of either of his parents.

“Eren, take Mikasa upstairs and give her a pair of clean clothes to wear,” Grisha murmured, taking off his hat as the three of them entered the house. He laid it down on the kitchen table. “You two stay upstairs until you’re called down. I have to talk with your mother.”

Eren nodded wearily, grabbing the little girl by her hand and leading her up the rickety wooden stairs. Once their soft footsteps had faded away, Grisha dropped himself down onto one of the kitchen table’s creaky wooden chairs, running fingers through his hair and sighing heavily. The soft lamplight cast heavy shadows across his face, making him appear much older and more exhausted than Karla had ever seen him before.

“What happened?” Karla asked, taking the seat opposite her husband. “You were supposed to be seeing the Ackermans, right? How come...how come Eren looks like he’s been hurt, and -”

“We did go to see the Ackermans,” Grisha interrupted. He hesitated momentarily, trying to formulate how to say his next words. “But, unfortunately, we found that Mr. and Mrs. Ackerman had been killed, probably less than a couple hours before we arrived.”

“But, but, who? How?” Karla stammered. She clasped her hands together, unable to believe what she’d heard, and her mind racing to try and connect it to how Eren had gotten hurt.

“Slavers. They had come to kidnap Mrs. Ackerman and her daughter,” Grisha answered grimly. “Mrs. Ackerman was killed in the struggle, though, so they only ended up taking their daughter, Mikasa.”

“The girl, she’s the Ackerman girl? But how -”

“I...don’t know how exactly, but somehow Eren managed to find where she’d been taken to,” Grisha continued. He rubbed his temples, his glasses slipping down his nose. “When we saw Mr. and Mrs. Ackerman’s bodies in their home, I told Eren to wait for me while I contacted the Military Police, but he didn’t listen to me. Somehow, like I said, he found where Mikasa had been taken to. It wasn’t too far from their home.”

Karla felt a pit in her stomach forming, not all wanting to think about what she could only imagine would have happened next. Judging from the exhaustion and exasperation lining Grisha’s face, she could only be thankful that Eren had made it home at all.

“He had some...crazy idea in his head that he had to do something to help her.” Without missing a beat, Grisha continued, “He killed two of the men who’d taken her. Stabbed them to death.”

She wasn’t even sure how to react. Her _son_ had killed two grown men? It sounded utterly impossible. This was the boy who only escaped from bullies when they grew tired of beating on him or when adults intervened...and he had actually _killed_ two people now? The seriousness in Grisha’s expression was enough to convince her otherwise, that yes, indeed her son had actually done that. Her eyes welled up with tears, but she stubbornly wiped them away with her sleeve.

In stunned silence, she listened as Grisha explained the rest of the events. How Mikasa had killed the final man when he’d attempted to strangle Eren (Karla’s heart dropped at this moment, trying to not imagine her son’s face turning blue as he struggled to gasp for air), how he and the Military Police had discovered the empty cabin with the bodies of three dead men and two bloodied children, how he’d extended an offer to Mikasa a place in their family. It was as though the world was spinning uncontrollably, and all Karla could make sense of it was that her heart had sank so deeply the only thing she could do was rest her head in her hands.

Grisha sat in silence for a few moments, contemplating her before finally speaking up. “You should prepare a bath for Mikasa. I’m sure she’d appreciate being able to clean up after this ordeal. I’ll go upstairs and talk with Eren.”

Before standing up from his seat, Grisha reached across the table to gently take hold of Karla’s hands. Despite his exhaustion and the shock of the day’s events, he was as calm and composed as possible. Reassuringly, he squeezed her hands a couple of times. The firm strength in her husband’s hands was comforting and warming. Silently, Grisha let go and left to disappear upstairs.

Moments after Grisha had left her, the girl came treading gingerly down the stairs, her eyes trained warily on Karla. Karla decided on following Grisha’s suggestion, and rose up from the kitchen table to take out the tin bathtub stowed underneath the sink cupboard. Before the sink, she spread out a large old towel across the floor and placed the tub on top of it. She hoisted a bucket into the sink basin, pumping water into it from the sink and dumping it into the tub when its rim was reached.

Mikasa still seemed uneasy (Karla couldn’t blame the poor girl), standing timidly at the kitchen table clutching a bundle of clothes to her chest. Karla recognized the clothes as an old worn shirt of Eren’s and a pair of trousers that he’d outgrown last year. Eren’s scarf was still wrapped around her neck.

“Mikasa, come here,” Karla said, gesturing to a seat at the table. “You can sit down while I fill the tub, okay?”

Silently, Mikasa nodded in understanding and took the seat offered to her. From the chair, she watched with dull eyes as Karla filled the tub, still clutching tightly to the bundle of clothes. Soon enough, the tub reached its needed capacity, and Karla stowed the bucket to the side. Mikasa eyed the tub with uncertainty, but with gentle reassurance, Karla was able to coax her into removing her dirtied clothes (it took an extra effort to convince Mikasa to unravel Eren’s scarf off of her neck, and Karla had to promise she’d give it right back once the bath was done) and lay herself into the tub.

There was much more evidence of the day’s events beneath the girl’s clothes. Karla felt her heart sank as she helped Mikasa scrub away at her pale skin, wiping dried blood and dirt away to reveal deep bruises and shallow scratches. With a careful eye, but without trying to make Mikasa uncomfortable, Karla inspected the worst of the injuries after they’d been washed. There were no sort of wounds that indicated anything but being involved in a physical altercation, which Karla found somewhat relieving to know this poor girl hadn’t been violated in any other way. Embedded beneath Mikasa’s nails were even more amounts of blood and dirt, which proved difficult to wash away. Around her delicate wrists were scabbed and irritated marks in a woven pattern, obviously remnants of whatever rope had been used to restrain her with. Her left forearm was particularly sensitive and swollen, and Karla saw a dark outline of some sort of tattoo just above the wrist. She decided not to ask questions and simply used gentler motions while cleaning up the skin.

Karla decided to tackle Mikasa’s hair by herself, to let the girl not have to be concerned about it. She drenched the knotted tangles of hair in the soapy water while Mikasa hunched herself over the tub, hugging her knees. Karla worked her fingers through the girl’s hair, combing through the smaller tangles with some ease of experience. For the larger knots, Karla employed the use of her comb, gently working the fine teeth through the tangled strands of hair. It was after a considerable time that finally Mikasa’s hair had returned to what Karla assumed was its usual state, aside from being soaking wet - neatly framing her face and pin straight. After helping Mikasa stand and wrapping her in a thin towel, Karla carefully lifted up the tub and dumped the bathwater into the sink. Mikasa was already slipping into Eren’s old clothes. Karla helped her dry her hair with the towel as best she could.

While Karla stowed away the emptied tub and set Mikasa’s dirtied nightgown aside to be washed sometime later, Mikasa stood at the kitchen table, her hands nervously toying with the loose and frayed threads of the shirt’s hem. Eren’s scarf had already been wrapped once more around Mikasa’s neck. Karla ached to be able to give the girl a warm embrace but wasn’t sure how she’d respond. Instead, she settled to take a seat on the bench before the window, patting the space beside her. Mikasa followed obediently, sitting down beside Karla.

“I’ll comb your hair for you, okay?” Karla said, comb in hand.

Mikasa only nodded, chewing lightly on her lower lip.

Karla hope that this would be somewhat relaxing for the girl. She combed through Mikasa’s dark hair once more, repeating until the comb’s teeth glided smoothly and easily through the locks. Quietly, Karla slipped into the habit of softly humming a tune, the name of which she’d long forgotten, one which she vaguely remembered her own mother humming to her while combing her hair. By the time she’d finished neatening up Mikasa’s hair, the girl’s head was drooping in exhaustion. Karla saw that Mikasa’s eyes had shut, but that her face was void of the expression of contentment that came only with drifting off to sleep. Karla returned back to combing Mikasa’s hair one more time over, before separating it into sections. With ease, she neatly braided a long plait that reached past Mikasa’s shoulders. Holding the braid in place with two pinched fingers, Karla one handedly untied the yellow ribbon in her own hair and tied it in a snug bow at the end of Mikasa’s braid.

Gently, Karla lifted the sleeping girl off the bench and stood, letting Mikasa’s head rest in the crook of her neck. Sleepily, one of Mikasa’s arms draped around Karla’s other shoulder. Taking care not to rouse Mikasa, Karla quickly made to blow out the candles lighting the room, and then carried her upstairs. As her eyes adjusted to the dark landing area of the stairs, Karla saw that Eren was curled up on his bed in the corner, tucked beneath a heavy quilt. He didn’t stir as Karla approached and gently nudged him over to make room for Mikasa. One handedly, Karla lifted the quilt up and then set Mikasa down on the mattress beside Eren. She pulled the quilt back up so it covered Mikasa as well, and she leaned over to plant a kiss on Eren’s forehead. She brushed her fingertips gently across the bruises striping Eren’s neck, and noticed that it seemed as though Grisha had helped Eren wash up before bed.

Taking one last look at the two children, Karla sighed and went to the bedroom. It was dimly illuminated by a single oil lamp atop the bedside table. Grisha was sitting on the edge of the bed, his eyes scanning the contents of a small leather bound book. He glanced up expectantly as Karla entered and shut the door behind her and set the book beside the lamp.

“What are we going to do?” Karla whispered exasperatedly, running fingers through her hair.

“How is Mikasa?” Grisha ignored her question.

“She’s asleep,” Karla answered. She started clumsily unbuttoning her blouse, somehow managing to miss almost every button in her first try. “She wouldn’t speak either.”

Not that Karla had really tried prompting Mikasa to speak to begin with.

Seeing Karla’s struggle with the buttons, Grisha rose from the bed, clasping his hands around her’s and then taking over the job of unbuttoning. Another exasperated sigh came from Karla.

“Grisha, what are we going to do about this?” she repeated her question in a whisper. “My...our son just killed two men -”

“The Military Police assured me that as long as their investigation matches with Eren and Mikasa’s accounts of the events, then no criminal charges are to be taken against them,” Grisha murmured. He laid a hand at the back of Karla’s neck, coaxing her to nestle her head in the crook between his shoulder and neck. “Terrifying as it might be, it was an honest act of self defense.”

Karla knew this, she really did, but somehow the gravity of the situation didn’t seem capable of lessening. They stayed still like this for several moments, Karla’s head tucked into the crook of Grisha’s neck as Grisha rested his lips on the crown of her head. The room began to dim even more as the oil lamp ran low on fuel. Grisha finally pulled the two of them apart, his light eyes meeting Karla’s dark ones. At some point her eyes had begun to water, yet tears refused to spill over the rims of her eyelids.

Heavily, Karla sighed and began slipping out of her clothes to change into the pale nightgown draped over the standing mirror. She could see in the reflection of the mirror that Grisha was watching her from behind, discretely trying to appear fixated on the act of wiping his eyeglasses. He’d already been changed into a long dark nightshirt, one that Karla was certain he’d been wearing since before they’d married. With the soft hem of a sleeve, Karla dabbed at her eyes to soak up the stubborn tears.

For some reason, she wanted nothing more than to sob until she could no longer muster the strength to do so. In one day, she’d come so close to losing Eren, to losing Grisha, the two people who meant the most to her. And the Ackerman girl, Mikasa...it was absolutely heartbreaking to think of what kind of emotional trauma the poor girl had been through today.

Yet she couldn’t. All she could do was miserably wipe at her eyes until they were red and irritated. She dropped herself to sit on the edge of the bed, her chest feeling like it was caving in on itself in some unknown, indescribable turmoil.

How could she live knowing her son had taken the lives of two men? How could she possibly look at him the same way? She would love him all the same still, yet the very truth that of what Eren had done would always be etched into her mind. What if she _couldn’t_ love him the same way? What kind of mother would she be then?

How was she supposed to look after another child, one who’d had her entire life and world stripped away from her in the course of an afternoon?

“Karla,” Grisha called to her. He was beside her, a look of concern across his tired face. “Everything will work out fine. I promise you that.”

She flung her arms out to wrap around her husband, burying her head against his chest. Finally, the force of sobs racked her body as she clung to him, as tear streamed rapidly down her cheeks. As she gasped for air and shook, Grisha’s steady hands rested on the small of her back. He was completely silent, though it was comforting in its own way. With the quiet presence of her husband and gentle reassurance of his touch, Karla let all of the emotion built up in her since that very first evening Eren had come home bloodied and bruised flood out.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, I did a ridiculously stupid amount of research for this fic. you'd think that there would not be anything required to research, but nope, I couldn't force myself to post this until after I'd read two or three books about being a mother and housewife in early modern Europe. regardless, this fic has been sitting mostly finished in one of my school notebooks since November, and I figured it's about time I did something with it.
> 
> originally, this was something that was supposed to focus on Karla and Eren's relationship and then divert more into focusing equally on both Mikasa and Eren's relationships with Karla, but that's not how things ended up, and it evolved into being mostly Mikasa and Karla's relationship. this was also supposed to originally be a standalone piece, but I decided to break it up into more intertwined chapters of varying times after Mikasa joins the Jaeger family.


End file.
